CalqLearn Calq: a building from A to Z / Part 11 Exchange
CAD and PDF drawings in
Put a DXF, DWG or PDF drawing into a drafting view at its true scale, and open a model file as Calq's own elements.
You will make a drafting view at 1:100, bring in the ground floor plan as a DXF and as a PDF, and see where IFC and DWG models come in.
The files this lesson uses: plan.dxf plan.pdf
01A drafting view at 1:100
Press + beside the view tabs, type drafting and choose A new drafting view. A drafting view holds lines, fills and text at a scale of its own, apart from the model. Click its scale, 1:10, and choose 1:100, the scale the plan was drawn at.
02A DXF or a DWG
Open Insert and choose Import a DXF, DWG, PDF or image, then the DXF (offered above). Calq reads it in your browser and says what it found: drawn in millimetres, 19 items brought in, its lines and its texts, left selected. A DWG is read the same way, turned into DXF in your browser first.
03A PDF
Do the same with the PDF. Each page lands as a picture at its paper size at the view's scale: at 1:100, a plan printed at 1:100 lands at its true size, beside the DXF. Calibrate sets another scale from a known length, and Trace turns a picture's straight lines into lines.
04A model file
An IFC, a DWG or a DXF can also open as the model itself: Bring in, Import IFC. An IFC from Revit, ArchiCAD or any tool comes in as editable elements with its storeys, grid and types; a DWG or DXF plan comes in as Calq's own walls, doors, windows and rooms on a storey. On the open board, Calq first asks for the free account, as here.
A PDF drawing set is read whole by Calq AI (Professional): every sheet, its scale measured from its own figures, its grid and its storeys, before anything is built.
